Fraud

$504 million more to victims of Madoff ponzi scheme. Madoff ponzi scheme victims are to receive another $504 million from assets that government seized after the collapse of one of the largest frauds in history. Payments to victims could reach $4 billion. Much of these funds were recovered from Madoff’s family and friends, Madoff’s bank J.P. Morgan Chase, and from wealthy investors who had cashed out billions of what turned out to be fictitious profits.

The SciShow guys have a nice video explaining how the Equifax hack happened. Equifax is in the business of collecting, storing, and disseminating sensitive consumer information — like credit card numbers, social security numbers, and bank account numbers. You don’t voluntarily give Equifax your sensitive data — Equifax gets that data whether you want it to or not.

Holiday consumer alert – watch out for those VIP membership clubs — the ones that automatically charge monthly fees to your credit card. Those membership clubs may not live up to their promises and can make it hard to cancel membership.

What was Robert Rubin’s role in false statements about losses made by Citigroup in an October 2008 analyst call? At the time, Robert Rubin was Chairman of Citi’s Executive Committee. Neither he nor any board member was named in the SEC case arising out of those statements, for which Citigroup paid a $75 million civil settlement. But Rubin and other board members had been informed of losses far exceeding the amount of losses disclosed in the analyst call weeks before the call.

Too often corporate directors and officers evade efforts to hold them accountable. A San Francisco federal court has brought Wells Fargo directors and officers one step closer to being held accountable for the rampant wrongdoing at the bank.

One of the fastest growing cyberfrauds is the closing payment scam — the theft of home purchase money wired for closings. How does this scam work? How can you protect yourself? How can you recover losses if you are a victim of this scam?

FINRA Is Doing A Whole Lot Less FINRAing These Days Even before this year, FINRA’s FINRAing was not effective. I have seen FINRA Enforcement do nothing in egregious cases where a firm’s Financial Advisor lied to an investor or created firm documentation that was a false — like documenting annual meetings with a customer that could not have happened. I have seen FINRA do nothing about blatant misconduct of FINRA members in arbitration proceedings. When FINRA does get involved, FINRA’s FINRAing can impede investors efforts to recover losses.

Must be embarrassing for Zacks Investment Research to learn that not one, not two, but three of its employees were trading on illegal inside information for years! According to the SEC’s complaint — see link below — the three are Jason Napodano, Bilal Basrai, and Bryce Stirton. Two of the three were managers of Zacks divisions.